Bungee Jumping Ottawa

This is one of those things that messes with your senses. I don't quite know how to explain it. A part of your brain is filling your system with adrenaline and making you excited about the thrill of bouncing through the air on a ride that is far better than anything you'll find at the county fair.

However another part of your brain is screaming "don't do it!".

Bungee Jumping Today!

By the way, this was Ruth's idea. So when she is standing on the edge hesitating to jump, I shall remind her of that.

You only live once, right? Or more correctly, you only die once! You actually live every single day. Which is what you're supposed to do anyhow. So we're making the most of it, and when the opportunity arose to plunge off a 200 ft high platform attached to a giant rubber band, we signed up.

Yet another new camera!

Well I hope we finally have our camera problems solved. We're going to have a LOT of photos to show you over the next few months with our upcoming travel to Nova Scotia, and New York City, and then of course Southern Africa!

Who won a trip to Australia? (Part 2)

If you missed yesterday's post you're going to want to read it first...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2013/10/who-won-trip-to-australia.html

And so today, we continue Denise's trip to Australia. Love your photos Denise!

Who won a trip to Australia?

Many of our regular readers will remember last year when we entered a contest to win a trip to Australia. Due to a lot of effort from our readers, we came in first in our category. But that was not enough to lock in the win.

Coincidentally, the person who won that contest has become a reader of this blog and we asked her to tell us about her trip. Hey, if we couldn't go, at least we can tell you about the person who did.

And so, we introduce you to Denise Perrier who wrote about her 10 week Australia adventure for us. She also supplied some of her beautiful photographs from that trip!

The cheque is in the mail!

I guess these Amex adjusters work on weekends. Had an email from the girl yesterday saying that my claim has been processed and closed and the cheque (check) is in the mail!

Oddly, they don't even want the camera back. This becomes a bit of a bonus for us because we now have a spare battery to bring with us to Africa.

More proof that we are not 25 anymore!

We sure did party like it though.

Late blog post today due to the longer age related recovery period after a night like that...

Good News!

So, it looks like Amex is coming through with the coverage on the camera. So, we learned something new about the benefits of some credit cards. And because this was our first claim and it was for under $500, they were able to process it with less documentation than is normally required. Still waiting to hear back from my last email, but it looks like they simply send us a cheque for the amount of the claim. I don't even think they want the old camera back, which could be a bonus because we will now have a spare battery!

Next week, we'll go back to Future Shop (owned by Best Buy here in Canada) and see if they will match the same price they gave me on the original camera.

We don't seem to have any luck with cameras!

I mentioned last Saturday that when we were out on a hike with friends John and Diane, I dropped our new Nikon P520 camera.

Of course, it landed on a rock.

The Balanced Rocks of Remic Rapids

This is kind of cool, and exactly the type of thing we love to see when we're exploring an area.

Our hometown is Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. Because we grew up here, and we know the city very well, we wanted to find some things to do that we've never seen or done before.

September Expenses

Well, we had a planned budget of $1,300 for the month of September, and we blew it!

Just kidding, but we did exceed our plan a little bit. Total expenses came in at $1,446.

Trip down to Ottawa

We're going to be doing this drive quite a few times between now and October 15th when we leave for Nova Scotia. We're staying at Ruth's father's house in the village of Galetta, which is about a 45 minute drive from the center of the city of Ottawa, Canada's capital.

We made it!

Despite the fact that we haven't lived here for six years and we'll probably never live here again, we still consider Ottawa our hometown. So arriving back here for the first time in almost a year is pretty exciting for us and we've been looking forward to seeing the family and friends that we have in the area.

We left here October 22nd of last year.

Elliot Lake, Ontario

Elliot Lake is an interesting town. Or at least it has an interesting history.

In the early fifties, a huge ore body of uranium was discovered in this area. So the city was designed as a planned community for the mining industry, and by the late 1950's there were 25,000 people living here.

Fastest Border Crossing Ever!

Yesterday morning, our friends Bill and Bonnie were getting up early to go get their solar installation done on their motorhome. They had a three hour drive to the appointment, so they woke us up as they were ready to go. It was only 5:40am, but we decided to stay up and get an early start.

A drive around Amish country

Bill and Bonnie took us for a drive to see the sights around the area. There is a large Amish population in this area and of course it's interesting to see this culture a little more up close. Sorry we don't have many pictures, but we didn't want to seem intrusive.

What a great day...

First, we had to get the drive over with. We tried to get an early start, and it was about 8:30am by the time we left Marquette.

Beautiful day in Marquette, Michigan!

When I had been doing some research about the places we were planning on stopping along this road trip, one of the things I found was that Marquette, Michigan was voted #1 on CNNMoney's list of the top 25 places to retire in the United States.

We went exploring yesterday, on a beautiful blue sky day, and we found out that Marquette (pop 22,000) is a nice little town!

Duluth, Minnesota to Marquette, Michigan

Hit the road yesterday morning around 8:30am. We were trying to make it to Marquette by 2:00pm, having planned a hike with our couchsurfing host Joy when we got there.

Had no problems making it out of Duluth on a Sunday morning. Hardly any traffic at all.

Toxic Tuesday

Toxic Tuesday? Well let me tell you a story about our first attempt to visit Duluth, Minnesota.

Back at the end of June 1992, Ruth and I took our young children (6 and 4 at the time) on a road trip from Ottawa to Fort Frances, Ontario. We took the American route through Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

And we never did make it to Duluth.

Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Blue Ox

We tried to leave Grand Forks fairly early, but it was still around 9:30am by the time we got on the road. Said goodbye to our couchsurfing host Jasmine, and got on our way.

Back in the U.S.A.!

We were up early yesterday morning, and on the road before 9:00am. We were only 20 kms (12 miles) from the border crossing, so it wasn't long before we pulled over at the inspection and customs building.

This border crossing is one of a series of old and underutilized road crossings between the U.S. and Canada in the Saskatchewan and Manitoba area.

Excuse me...are you Kevin and Ruth?

This has to be one of the strangest questions that we have heard in our travels. It's when someone actually recognizes us because of this blog. It's only happened to us three or four times over the years, but it's so totally strange when it does.

And yesterday we had it happen again!

That was a long drive!

But we totally enjoyed it. I know, an 800 km (500 mile) drive is not the way we usually like to travel. We love road trips, but usually a long day for us is 200 kms (120 miles)!

We were up at 6:00am Tuesday morning, and driving out of the parking lot at the campground at 7:20am.

We're the only ones here.

Everybody is gone now. The campground is empty. The store, restaurant, and registration are all closed up.

It's just us and the squirrels.

Heigh ho, heigh ho,

it's off to our last day of work we go!

We've been waiting for this day since May the 1st!

Strange places to visit

We like to find strange, different, and quirky things to see and do in our travels. Even if it means going out of our way or being slightly uncomfortable, we think that to experience these things is to live. Here are some of the strangest things we've seen and done...

T minus 4 days...

Counting down the days until we're outta here.

Our inmate work crew got a lot done yesterday. Even though they're really only here working for about 4 hours, then don't stop. When I told one guy it was quitting time, he said "What? We only just got started!".

Getting ready to shut things down.

There's not really a lot to do to shut things down around here. Besides, it turns out that they're actually keeping the campground open until the end of the month but there won't be any services. The water will be turned off and the washrooms and shower building will be closed.  Nobody will be in the office and store although someone will come around a couple of times per day to make sure anyone camping pays their fees. There will still be electricity at the campsites though.

New York City

Obviously thoughts of New York City will be crossing your mind today, the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers.

But we're also thinking of New York City because we'll be back there together on November 2nd for four nights!

Would we do it again?

Now that our campground manager job is coming to an end for the season, we've had quite a few readers asking if we would do it again.

But first, we have to clarify once again that we are NOT camp hosts.

Doing the happy dance!

We got the word yesterday. Our last day of work for the season will be next Sunday the 15th.

Monday the 16th we'll get the little blue car packed up, and early morning of Tuesday the 17th we're outta here!!!

Fall is in the air

You can sure tell that Labour Day long weekend signals the end of summer.

We had four campsites occupied this past week. And this weekend, we've had seven.

Would you visit the Himba people?

The country of Namibia has 11 major distinct ethnic groups of people.

One of them is the Himba, a nomadic tribe of people who appear to have been forgotten by the rest of the world. Even though they say there are between 20,000 and 50,000 of these people living in the extreme isolation of the northwest corner of Namibia, they don't receive many visitors, and because of their nomadic existence they are somewhat difficult to find in the first place.

We booked a strange flight deal...

Yesterday was a day for deals, that's for sure. And we LOVE getting a deal.

We've been looking for the cheapest way to get to New York City, and something came up yesterday that we jumped on. Kinda strange though...because the destination was to Philadelphia!

Great day visiting with friends

Spent most of the day yesterday with our friends Doug and Nancy and his brother Dwayne and wife Agnes. Another one of our seasonal campers left yesterday, and then another couple of campers showed up towards the end of the day. You can sure tell that everybody is back at work and school!

Peace and quiet

Well, until our visitors showed up anyhow. Bunch of hooligans, keeping us up with their partying! Ha...just kidding.

Yesterday morning we took a canoe out. Nice to get a break for a change and we didn't see another boat out on the lake.

It's over!

Well, it's not quite over, but certainly the worst is over.

Our busy time here at the campground is the weekend, and long weekends are the busiest. Plus of course, they last three nights instead of two! But we survived this weekend just fine...and it was the last LONG weekend of the season.

Our Namibia trip just got better!

With many thanks to our facebook fans, we're thrilled to announce that we are one of three winners of another contest!

The prize?

25 nights of accommodation and breakfast at any of the lodges that belong to the Gondwana Collection Namibia.

August Expenses

Yeehaw! It's September, and that means we can say "We're outta here this month!" Not sure when, exactly. We were told at the beginning of the season that it would be between the 15th and the 30th. We're hoping it will be around the 20th.

August expenses came in exactly where we thought they would. A month ago, I had posted our July expenses at $1,052 and I predicted our August expenses would be about the same. August came in at $1,078.

Capture the Colour

I came across a photo contest the other day and thought it was a kind of an interesting one. Sponsored by Travel Supermarket, a British online travel seller, the contest is open to anyone around the world who has a blog.

And this blog post is actually our entry!

B-17 Bomber flies into town!

I think we were beaming all day yesterday with the news of our granddaughter's birth. Oh by the way, they've named her Sadie! We like that name! A little sister for our grandson Cameron. Can't wait to visit them in October. We sure have a lot to look forward to this fall!

Yesterday's planned post got put aside due to the much more important news so we can now get back on schedule.

We have a granddaughter!!

Big news today folks!

Lindsey and Justin had a healthy 7 lb 2 oz baby girl this morning in Ottawa! A little sister for Cameron!

...and buy a motorhome!

Yesterday's post, titled "Sell your house!" garnered a lot of attention and some questions from people who might not have thought of the possibilites of retiring to full time motorhome life.

Full time motorhome life in order to travel!!

Sell your house!

One of the reasons we are able to get by on so little money is that we don't own a house. Owning a house is a very expensive proposition, especially if it's not going up in value.

But of course you need somewhere to live. If your life circumstances aren't set up for full time travel,  then renting is a much more logical option.

Nice weekend

Uneventful weekend for us, just the way we like them around here at the campground. Beautiful summer weather, and that brought out the boaters and the day use area people. One more busy weekend to go, and that's Labor Day long weekend coming up next. But even that depends on the weather forecast. So far we still have quite a few sites available, but that should quickly change if the forecast looks nice.

While we were having a coasting kind of a weekend, our daughter Lindsey was busy.

Would you go to Cuba?

Or how about North Korea? Or Iran?

There has been a lot of discussion lately on some travel blogs regarding this topic since popular blogger Wandering Earl recently returned from a visit to North Korea and has been posting about his experiences there.

We're going to have visitors!

And we're super excited about it! Just the thing we need to break up our last month or so here at the campground.

So...who's coming to visit?

Are we "Adventure Travelers"?

Never really thought about it, but I guess maybe we are. What brought up the question was an article we saw on the Namibia Tourism Board website regarding a 10 day trip they are sponsoring for some other travel bloggers.

They're highlighting this trip as being "adventure tourism" and they explain what they mean by that...

We're ready to order our Tilley hats!

We tried on some Tilley hats yesterday.

As much as it is surprising to find some Tilley hats for sale in the tiny city of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan (pop 35,000), we were not surprised that the selection wasn't great and that some of the hats were older discontinued models.

But we still had fun trying them on!